First, I’d like to say again that I am a long fan of Apple and, especially, of Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc’s eclectic, opinionated genius, elegant visionary, founder and owner.

Now that this sincere homage has been paid, I’d like to touch on the iPhone and the iPhone’s approval and validation application process in particular.

While here or there, I’ve read a small but growing number of complaints from certain developers who consider their application rejection unfair, it’s not at all my intention to add to this number and I certainly don’t find rejection unfair. To my mind, Apple logically observes its qualitative choice criteria and some projects are legitimately refused. This I don’t contest!

However, I’ll linger on a specific editorial point, since I didn’t really understand the reasons that Apple gave for the refusal suffered by our humorous “SantaJobs” application!

SantaJobs is an extraordinary Christmas ball that lets you take Steve Jobs with you wherever you go – please see the attached screen shots. You help guest star Steve as he tries to catch Christmas presents.

Wow!

What was the reason for the rejection? Here it is: “[...] you ridicule a public person.”

The public person is, of course, Steve, their boss. Indeed, the character is caricatured in a friendly and kind way. So, there’s no ridicule here – decide for yourself – and on the contrary there’s only love!

Now what? Should I conclude that Apple lacks a sense of humour? Or that Steve has none? No, I can’t bring myself to do that. I remember an Apple presentation back in 1983 where Steve himself publicly parodied the famous TV show “The Dating Game” with, notably, the young Bill Gates, among the contestants.

Evidently Steve doesn’t lack a sense of humour. I started off absolutely certain that a man like him has the necessary self-deprecation so that he wouldn’t judge our wink at him as an affront but rather as a real homage.

To conclude, I’d like to believe that if my application had been delivered directly to him, you would have had it under your Christmas tree.

Alas, now you’ll just have to settle for me!

But, if for some stretch of the imagination, Steve sent me an e-mail over the next few days, all wouldn’t be lost.